Pages

Friday, February 8, 2013

"Brown Eyes" oil painting original fine art portrait

8 x 10"

oil on canvas

Sold

The model for this painting is my gorgeous sister-in-law. She is blissfully ignorant that this painting even exists, as I took the reference photo years ago, during a previous phase of being big-time into portraiture. So, hi Jen! And thanks for posing way back when.

Whenever I'm painting a portrait, I try to keep in mind that different areas of the face have different color casts. I guess this happens because you have more blood vessels closer to the skin in your nose-and-cheek area, but if anyone has a better reason, please speak up! Sargent was a master at demonstrating this effect.

Hi Sarah,about the color, yellow, red and blue - moving down on the face...here is an other explanation I was given.

It is always important to see the head as a shape, as you would see a sphere. If the light is above, the warmest light hits the top of the head, yellow, warms in the middle, and the cooler color below, farthest from the light.Also, the nose and cheeks, warm, so that they come forward, ears red because they are tend to be warm colored.Tell me what you think....

Your portraits are taking off !! I love Cheetham's palette. The simpler the better. a med light and a med dark, then modify from there. I've sort of arrived at that on my own. I have found the simpler the system, the more energy and focus can go into SEEING.LOVE your blog.sandra